July 22, 2024, 05:13 +03
Updated 40 minutes ago
Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America correspondent
Joe Biden has completely changed the US election: after insisting for weeks that he would remain the Democratic presidential candidate, he bowed to pressure and dropped out of the race.
So what does this mean for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party as a whole, and Donald Trump?
Harris is a risk many Democrats are willing to take.
Kamala Harris’ chances of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee got a major boost when Joe Biden singled her out in his resignation statement.
Biden gave his full support to Harris, saying making her his vice president four years ago was the best decision he ever made.
Harris also said she was honored by Biden’s endorsement and would do her best to win the nomination.
With less than a month until the Democratic National Convention, Democrats are likely to follow Biden’s lead and rally behind the vice president to avoid uncertainty.
There are practical and political reasons for them to do so.
According to the US Constitution, if something were to happen to Biden, his successor would be Kamala Harris.
The image that would be created by blocking Harris from becoming the first black woman to run for president would also be terrible for the party.
Harris will also have immediate access to the roughly $100 million donated to her campaign so far.
But there are elements to Kamala Harris that are in her favor and elements that are against her.
Polls show Harris’s public approval rating is at least as low as Biden’s, and in a head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump, he’s faring no differently than he would in a Trump-Biden matchup.
Kamala Harris has had a rocky time as vice president.
Harris was tasked with leading the effort to combat the root causes of migration from the Mexican border when she first took office. It’s a sensitive topic, and some of her missteps and comments have put her at the center of criticism.
She later served as Biden administration spokesperson on abortion rights and became well-versed on the subject, but the impression she made early on stayed with her.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in the 2020 Presidential election, Harris was hoping to be the Democratic nominee, but she performed very poorly.
Although he started the first day of the nomination campaign well, a combination of shaky interviews, a lack of a clearly defined political vision and poor campaign management forced him to withdraw from the race early on.
Picking Harris is a risk for Democrats, but there are no safe options at this point. In a race where Donald Trump has a chance of winning, the stakes are as high as they can be.
A Democratic Congress could be exciting
Over the past 50 years, party conventions have become boring political events.
Every moment of Congress is meticulously planned as footage beamed onto television screens, a television commercial that lasts for days and polishes the presidential candidate.
That’s what the Republican Convention felt like when it concluded last week, despite Donald Trump’s lengthy speech that had unclear beginnings and endings in places.
Next month’s Democratic Convention in Chicago is likely to look very different.
The political shows that the Democratic Party had planned to host in preparation for Biden’s candidacy have been canceled. Even though Kamala Harris’ name has come to the forefront in the upcoming Congress, it will be difficult to predict and control how the situation will unfold.
If Harris doesn’t secure the support of the party by then, the upcoming convention could turn into an open race in which candidates try to make their mark — a live-streamed political spectacle unlike anything Americans have ever seen before.
The Republican Party’s “strong versus weak” strategy has failed.
This year’s Republican Convention was a meticulously planned event.
The party’s main political goals were highlighted and criticism was directed at one man: Joe Biden.
Following Biden’s decision to withdraw, Republicans are carefully targeting names that no longer exist.
Republicans have spent the entire week criticizing candidates who dropped out of the race today.
Biden’s withdrawal has thrown Donald Trump’s Republican Party’s strategy into disarray.
The campaign focused on the vitality of presidential candidates, with former American wrestling star Hulk Hogan, mixed martial artists Dana White and Kid Rock among the performers chosen for the stage adaptation.
The focus was on trying to woo young male voters by creating a perception that Biden was weak, but in the new scenario the Democratic nominee is much younger than Biden.
Biden’s election strategy, which focuses on age, would not apply to Kamala Harris or other Democrats.
If Harris is nominated, Republicans will likely try to link her to perceived weaknesses in the current administration.
Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, is not closely associated with the left wing of the Democratic Party, but Republicans may try to portray her as a “radical leftist.”
Whoever the nominee is, Republicans will likely accuse Democrats of covering up Biden’s age-related vulnerabilities and putting the country at risk.
Both sides appear to be losing perspective just months before the first votes are cast in the presidential election.
